


Rockabye

by gotham_ruaidh



Series: Gotham Writes for Imagine Claire & Jamie [86]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 23:02:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13985184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotham_ruaidh/pseuds/gotham_ruaidh
Summary: What if Claire and Jamie found an empty hammock in an opportune spot aboard ship pre-Turtle Soup?





	Rockabye

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted at [Imagine Claire & Jamie](https://imagineclaireandjamie.tumblr.com/post/171833021731/what-if-claire-and-jamie-found-an-empty-hammock-in) on tumblr

Claire carefully laid out the suture needles on a length of mostly clean cloth, patiently waiting for the cauldron to boil. The ship rolled, and she darted away just in time to avoid being scalded, gripping the worn wood of the galley wall.

Murphy had been so generous in giving her space – and truth be told, the galley had better light than the cramped cabin she shared with Marsali. Here she could easily lay out the contents of her medicine box, scrub the drawers clean, organize her powders and tools. Which reminded her – she should sterilize the needles Yi Tien Cho used for Jamie’s acupuncture…

“Sassenach?” Jamie ducked to enter the galley, squinting as his eyes adjusted from the drenching sunlight of the main deck. “What are ye doing?”

“Washing and sterilizing my equipment. God knows I should do this twice a day – this ship couldn’t be a better breeding ground for germs.”

“Gerrrms,” he echoed, watching her carefully immerse a small wicker basket in the boiling cauldron. “What are ye cooking?”

“My instruments,” she explained patiently. “If I boil my scalpels and suture needles, then I don’t have to clean them later. Same goes for the bandages.”

“Mmphmm.” He pursed his lips. “How long do they need to boil?”

“At least five minutes – ten is better.”

“Good. I want to show ye something.”

She quirked her head, intrigued. “I can’t leave the fire unattended – ”

“You asked for me, milord?” Jamie stepped aside to make way for Fergus.

“Yes – milady is cleaning her medical supplies. Would ye mind watching the fire?”

“Not at all,” Marsali piped up from behind Fergus. “Whatever ye need, Da.”

“Good.” Jamie smiled sweetly at his wife, extending a hand. She shook her head, took his hand, and squeezed past Fergus and Marsali in the hallway.

“How clever of you to give them an excuse to be alone together,” she whispered as he led her down the hall and toward his cabin.

“Hush – ye dinna want to think I deliberately organized it for them – or for us – now, do ye?”

“I *am* intrigued, though – what are you doing, James Fraser?”

“Ye’ll see, Claire Fraser. Here we are.”

They stood before the tiny cabin that had been allotted to Yi Tien Cho at the outset of the voyage; due to his race, none of the sailors had wanted him in the main sleeping quarters, so Jamie had quietly arranged for him to sleep in a back-up store room. Jamie gently opened the door. Claire saw several hogsheads of water, crates of bottled alcohol, sacks of flour – and a lone hammock.

Now she turned to her husband, brows arched skeptically. “Just what are you thinking?”

Softly he shut the door, bolted it, smiled. “I’m thinking you and I sleep in here from now on. Willoughby can bunk wi’ Fergus.”

“Sleep here? In the hammock? With you?”

“I hope ye willna be sleeping wi’ anyone else,” he teased.

“But…” her mind spun. “But how will we fit? You’re so long – ”

“Ach – dinna fash. I’ve tested it out, myself. And now I want ye to test it out wi’ me.”

Casually, eagerly he reached for her belt, undoing the buckle, while she wordlessly slipped off her bodice and kicked off her shoes. Then she reached to help him remove his own vest and breeches and boots, until he stood before her in his shirt – and she stood before him in her shift.

Somehow he found her right hand, thumb worrying her – his – wedding ring. “Minds me of our wedding night, no?”

Three steps and she was in his arms, tasting his breath, holding him close.

The ship rolled, and they crashed into the wall. He tore his lips from hers, grinning.

“I suppose I’ll go in first,” he suggested. “Can ye hold it steady for me?”

She dipped the hammock down to one side, and he gracelessly scrambled in, his long legs dangling off the sides. He scooted and shifted until he lay on his side and opened his arms.

As carefully as she could, she stepped up, climbed onto him – and accidentally kneed him in the balls.

“*IFRINN!*” he choked, wheezing.

“Oh God, I’m sorry!” She gripped the rough canvas sides as the hammock pitched together with the ship.

“Be…careful…” he moaned through gritted teeth.

She was – she always was, when it came to him. In twenty seconds she had settled atop his chest, legs tangled with his, pelvis at a right angle to his hips. One arm rested beneath the back of his head, the other stretched over his shoulder, thumb sneaking beneath the neck of his shirt to stroke his sunburned clavicle.

She kissed the shell of his ear. He whimpered. Then turned his head to kiss her again.

They lay quietly together for what seemed to be a very long time, listening to each other breathe, and the creaking planks of the ship as it bobbed its merry way to Jamaica, and the pounding bootsteps of the men on the main deck above.

“It’s like we’re caterpillars in a cocoon,” she mused after a while.

Jamie kissed the sweat at her hairline. “You mean, wrapped up like this? I was thinking, now I understand why mothers swaddle their wee bairns. It’s so…warm. Safe.”

“I suppose you could also compare it to being in the womb.” For the eighth time that day, she thought of Brianna. “Protected.”

“I like being like this wi’ ye, Claire. All tucked away from the world – all close wi’ ye. Almost like we’re no’ two bodies, aye?”

“Haven’t you reminded me several times in our marriage that we are one body?”

The hammock swayed with a particularly large ocean swell. “We are. But it doesna hurt to *feel* it, aye? To…to just be here, like this. It’s no’ the same as when we lie together. We are one flesh, yes – but now here, wi’ you, I feel like…” he swallowed, voice thick with feeling. Struggling to find the right words.

“Like we are truly one body? One spirit?” she suggested.

He nodded. “I’m sorry if it’s uncomfortable for ye. I dinna ken why I am so…so *needy*.”

“Sshh,” she soothed. “It’s heaven for me to be here with you, like this. To have you right here – in my space. Do you feel the same?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes.”

“Do you remember how I told you I slept alone, for most of my marriage to Frank?”

He pulled her closer into the crook of his arm.

“I *craved* contact, Jamie. I needed it so badly – I needed to be intimate, like this.”

“Yes.” Now he swallowed, and kissed the tip of her nose. “Yes. So much.”

“So don’t ever apologize. I’d rather be here, squashed in a bloody stupid hammock with you, than anywhere else in the world.”

His hand slid down to her hips as they kissed, dipping beneath the hem of her shift, bunched up around her thighs. He smiled at her mewl of surprise, but sustained the kiss, waiting for her permission.

She nodded, and reached down to join them to each other, and they shared a gasp of pure ecstasy. Slowly she shifted on top of him –

And two seconds later they sprawled on the floor, a tangle of limbs and love and hysterical laughter.


End file.
